


adjectives for home

by restlesslikeme



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: (kind of), Character Study, Families of Choice, M/M, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-20 23:38:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlesslikeme/pseuds/restlesslikeme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos returns his handshake, smiling, and the sky (which had previously been a sort of hazy violet) suddenly clears into pale, sweet orange, like the color of a creamsicle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	adjectives for home

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILER ALERT if you haven't listened all the way through yet.

He arrives with a small team of fellow scientists and a moving truck full of lab supplies. His name is Carlos, though as soon as they drove past the sign reading _Welcome to Night Vale_ (strangely devoid of any population indicator, and with a town slogan that he _couldn't quite_ read as it almost appeared to be flickering in and out like a bad television signal), as soon as he drove past that sign he felt in his fingertips that he might not be just Carlos any longer. The feeling's a strange one and he brushes it off.

He’s here to study.

 

 

\--

 

 

He's glad for his instruments and his tools, metal and plastic and electricity that buzzes and whirrs, because after a mere few days in town he learns that he cannot trust his own eyes. None of the clocks seem to work: some reading different times, some stopped, and never seeming to move when he looks at them, only read a different hour if he glances away and then turns back. Things that appear to exist simply don't when he tries to analyze them, and things that he can't seem to find- either physically or conceptually- show up on his scanners. Generally these things are mundane: for example, he's aware now that there's an umbrella stand that sits just a few feet to left of the entrance to his lab, though he can't see or touch it, and can even walk through the space where his tech says it should be. Unless he's reading directly off the scanner, however, he can't seem to understand what exactly an umbrella stand _is_ , though he's sure he must have known at some point in his life.

The people here mistrust him, but he's used to it. He's learned that no one is ever happy to have their home invaded by people in lab coats. Only Cecil, who introduces himself, fumblingly, as the voice of Night Vale Public Radio, offers him anything close to a friendly expression. Carlos returns his handshake, smiling, and the sky (which had previously been a sort of hazy violet) suddenly clears into pale, sweet orange, like the color of a creamsicle.

 

 

\--

 

 

Sometimes when he's in bed, he swears the radio will turn on of its own accord and he'll hear Cecil's voice in his sleep.

 _Perfect Carlos, Beautiful Carlos_  
  
The words stick to him like sand.

 

 

\--

 

 

Carlos works. Carlos studies. He meets a boy with two heads and sees angels in matching knitted sweaters. Their wings look like sky and their skin shines like polished white and black glass, their halos a mosaic of light. He takes polaroids of houses that leak blood and strange medical afflictions that leave people with extra horns or limbs or eyes. He is afraid for Night Vale and the bizarre people in it, afraid of their dog park and of hooded figures who make his blood run cold, of their disappearing children and of the inexplicable rifts in space and matter which could, at any moment, destroy Life As We Know It.

Cecil gives him a folded up piece of wax cooking paper and tells him somberly that if he needs to reach him regarding any emergencies that the town needs to be informed of, he's to hold it over a lit candle and recite the chant scratched there backwards into the phone receiver before the paper melts. This makes Carlos uncomfortable and he sticks to using Cecil's phone number, which he finds in the yellow pages.

Their phone conversations are full of expectant pauses on Cecil's end, as well as a distant slithering noise in the phone lines, which Cecil assures him is "completely normal".

No one leaves the town, despite his urgings. Very rarely do people even prepare themselves against the things he tries to warn them of. The people of Night Vale have perfected the balance between unconcerned and perpetually fearful- every day is a new one, and this is their life. He’s torn between being full of awe and full of unease.

He comes to realize that he is unsure of Cecil’s appearance. When they aren’t standing face to face and he tries to picture him in his mind, he’s unable to. Is Cecil pale, or is his skin dark? Does his hair curl around his ears, or does he wear it pulled back; practical, away from his face. Does he wear glasses? Carlos finds that he can hold onto only details: the smooth curved line of Cecil’s collarbone peeking out from under his strangely patterned shirt, his graceful hands, and his eyes, which seem to constantly shift and change hue to reflect the sky.

 

 

\--

 

 

Carlos, unlike many of the other scientists who he travelled with, does not have a family to return to back home. He was the only child of deceased parents, with very few aunts or uncles, never married. That being as it is, while his team of scientists comes and goes, Carlos remains, fascinated and full of awe, and every day growing a little more pleased to be in the scientific anomaly of a town that is Night Vale, a little more wrapped up with it than he was before. He thinks maybe they’re coming to accept him too, even if it’s just as another peculiar feature- like a clocktower that teleports itself around, or a particular square of sidewalk that shrieks when you step on it. He doesn’t mind.

 

 

\--

 

 

The night that Carlos dies, the sky is the color of an ocean storm: deep blue and green and grey, full of fury and desperate grief. Impossible for Carlos to know, dead as he were, but Cecil’s eyes are the same, and the Voice of Night Vale sobs and rips across desert airwaves, damning his own inaction, damning the town that he loves as though it were a part of himself.

Carlos is dead.

And then, miraculously, Carlos isn’t.

He still feels a little bit unalive, like there are parts of his organs that are still jumping up to speed, like his body and his soul are still in shock and maybe not quite aligned perfectly the way they had been before, but he has the sense that everything is going to shift back into place soon, that he’s on his way up. Mostly he’s just tired, and a little lonely, and when he looks up at the sky and sees that it’s orange, he knows exactly who he wants to see.

The sun has set by the time Cecil makes it to him. Cecil’s eyes are a deep royal blue, and everything is simple.

 

 

\--

 

 

On their second date, Carlos keeps a group of school children from being eaten by small, acidic yellow slugs. On their third, the table at the diner where they’re eating begins to drip excessive amounts of blood (“ _Extremely_ excessive,” Cecil says, sounding more than a little bit concerned “This should have stopped at least five minutes ago. I wonder what’s the matter.”), and they decide that it might be better to take a rain check, especially “given Carlos’ horoscope for the day”.

On their fourth date, Carlos has him over to his makeshift apartment, which is attached to his makeshift lab. He teaches Cecil how to make gorditas, how to roll the corn dough and press it into the right shape with your hands, how to tell when they’re finished cooking. Cecil laughs a lot and asks genuine questions that sound strange, questions about the color of the corn in the flour and why they’re bothering to use the pan instead of just asking the cakes to fry with a blood offering, and Carlos grins back at him, feeling warm and full and happy, like he’s been laying out in the desert sun.

Carlos follows Cecil to the door when they’ve finished eating and talking, when everything’s wound down, and he stops him with a hand on his hip and fingers wrapped around his wrist. He leans Cecil back against the painted wood, looking him over at close range, looking at his soft smile and at his tangerine eyes. Cecil’s breath is short and soft, and just before Carlos kisses him, he sighs.

“Maybe you should stay the night,” Carlos murmurs, moving his hands to hold onto Cecil’s face, fingers on either side of his jaw, while he continues to kiss him in the half light. Cecil tastes good; his mouth is unchapped and pliant and he keeps flicking his tongue past Carlos’ lips.

“Do you need help with your bloodstone?” Cecil asks, breathless into Carlos’ mouth.

Carlos pulls him closer, says, “No. I’d just really like to sleep with you. And I could make you coffee in the morning.” Cecil kisses him more forcefully at that, and Carlos can hear it in his head “ _Beautiful Carlos, Perfect Carlos_ ” , and he thinks this is what he felt when he first came into the town.

 

 

\--

 

 

Carlos keeps a corkboard of polaroids that he’s taken of strange happenings around Night Vale; or, it had started as a corkboard. He has an entire wall covered now. Everything from the glow cloud to the tiny city, to Josie and her divine entourage overlooks his lab with its experiments. He’s got pictures of his scientists with the nonexistent house, of Cecil and Khoshekh (it didn’t develop properly. It’s just a light blur and an empty sink, but he has it posted anyway), even of the former “Apache Tracker”.

This morning is cool, and there’s a storm rumbling in the distance. A rain storm, he hopes, to break the dry spell, but he’s coming to learn that it could very well be literally any kind of storm imaginable (or unimaginable). Carlos stands in front of his picture wall and considers it. Every part of Night Vale is unique and special- nothing is in place, and in that way nothing is out of place- not the lights above the Arby’s, not a cat trapped in mid air or a dog with a billboard protruding from its midsection. Not even him, as ordinary as he may be. He’d forgotten what it was like to enjoy discovery so purely and simply, to place value in the exploration of the world rather than the answers that could be procured from it.

He’s still considering this when the radio crackles on and the room fills with Cecil’s voice, and smiling, he retrieves his lab coat from the back of his chair, resolving to bring Cecil some coffee after lunch (whenever that may be).

 


End file.
